An article transport facility provided with an article transport device which raises and lowers, through a plurality of floors, an raised and lowered member supporting an article is described in JP Publication of Application No. 2009-137675 (Patent Document 1). This article transport facility has an opening which is formed in the floor portion between a floor above and a floor below, and through which the raised and lowered member can move through along the vertical direction. In addition, this article transport facility is provided with a fire door which opens and closes this opening. In other words, the article transport facility of Patent Document 1 is configured, when a fire breaks out in the floor below, to prevent the flames, smoke, and hot air generated by the fire (referred to hereinafter as “hot air, etc.”) from entering the floor above through the opening, by closing the opening with the fire door.
Incidentally, in article transport facilities such as one just described, gaps are often formed at an edge of the fire door even when the opening is closed by the fire door. Especially when installed objects having complex shapes, such as a guide rail for guiding the raised and lowered member or a power supply cable for supplying electric power to the raised and lowered member, exist in the opening of the floor, it is difficult to match the shape of an edge of the fire door with the shapes of such installed objects. For this reason, when the opening is closed by the fire door, gaps tend to be formed between edges of the fire door and the installed objects.
With such gaps formed, when a fire breaks out on the floor below, there is a possibility that the flames and smoke, etc. generated by the fire may enter the floor above through the gaps formed at the edges of the fire door. As a solution to this, it is conceivable to provide expanding members, which expand when heated, at locations in which the gaps are formed. That is, it is conceivable to close the gaps with the expanding members expanded by the heat generated by the fire. Thus, flames, smoke, etc. can be prevented from entering the floor above by closing the gaps in this manner; however, there will be a time lag between the time a fire breaks out and the time the expanding members expand to close the gaps. Therefore, there is a possibility that smoke etc. may enter the floor above through the gaps by the time the expanding members have expanded to close the gaps.